TELO sympathiser shot dead

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 May 1999, 03:58 GMT]The body of a TELO sympathiser, Subramaniam Thavasi,25, was found early this morning in front of the TULF office on Railway Station Road in Kurumankaadu, a suburb of Vavuniya town. Thavasi, according to Police sources, appears to have been shot dead late last night or in the early hours of the morning today.

His body was found at the same spot where the PLOTE Pradeshiya Sabha member, Gunaratnam, was shot by unidentified gunmen last night. A TELO spokesman said this morning that Thavasi was one of their supporters in the Vavuniya suburb of Thonikkal where he had a shop close to the organisation's branch office.

The TELO accused the PLOTE of kiiling Thavasi. The two paramilitary groups have been accused of killings and retaliatory murders in a struggle for dominance in Vavuniya town. Earlier this year, the brother of a TELO cadre was shot dead and his body was left at the spot in Pattakaadu, a Vavuniya suburb, where the day before a woman activist of the PLOTE was allegedly shot dead by the TELO.